New Ad Tech Collaboration Delivers Granular Cost-Per-Acquisition Data for Connected TV Campaigns

A recent collaboration between InterMedia Advertising, Peer39, and Pontiac Intelligence has successfully delivered show-level cost-per-acquisition data for 94% of ad impressions in a connected TV campaign, a breakthrough that provides advertisers with the kind of granular performance metrics previously reserved for digital platforms.

This development marks a significant step toward fulfilling the long-standing promise of connected TV (CTV): combining the immersive, big-screen impact of traditional television with the precise targeting, measurement, and optimization capabilities of online advertising. For years, advertisers, particularly those focused on performance and direct response, have been hampered by CTV's inability to directly link ad views to specific business outcomes like a sale or a sign-up on a show-by-show basis.

The new capability allows marketers to see not just which channels or platforms are performing, but which specific television shows are driving the most cost-effective customer acquisitions. This level of insight enables them to optimize their ad spend in near real-time by shifting budgets toward higher-performing content and away from programs that fail to deliver a return on investment.

This shift is not an isolated event but part of a broader industry trend. Google recently announced performance upgrades for its Display & Video 360 platform, which will incorporate IP addresses and other signals to better measure advertising outcomes at the household level. The goal, according to Google, is to help advertisers better understand their audience and run more performant CTV campaigns.

The sentiment that CTV has reached a performance tipping point was echoed at the POSSIBLE marketing conference in Miami Beach this past April. During a panel hosted by AppsFlyer, executives argued that performance-oriented CTV is advancing faster than the systems and strategies used to evaluate it. “The bottleneck has moved,” said Brian Quinn, president and general manager for North America at AppsFlyer, suggesting that the primary constraint is no longer technology but advertiser attention and adaptation.

This evolution is compelling businesses to reassess how they manage and measure their television advertising budgets. Melissa Velasco, marketing director at the mental-health platform Talkspace, said during the panel that her company brought its CTV buying in-house as budgets tightened and efficiency became paramount. “I try to hold it to the same level of scrutiny I do my other performance channels,” Velasco stated, noting that Talkspace now evaluates CTV for metrics such as cost per site visit and cost per acquisition, not just brand awareness.

Historically, a major barrier for many small and mid-sized businesses was the perception of TV advertising as an unquantifiable expense primarily for building brand awareness. The inability to directly attribute sales to specific TV ad placements made it difficult to justify for companies that rely on a clear return on ad spend (ROAS). The new tools and methodologies directly address this challenge, making TV accessible to a new class of performance-focused advertisers.

According to industry leaders, the key to unlocking this new wave of advertisers is not simply providing easier access or self-serve platforms, but offering true performance optimization. Jason Fairchild, CEO of tvScientific, has emphasized that performance brands need platforms that actively optimize campaigns toward business outcomes, similar to how ad systems from Meta and Google function. The old model of buying TV ads and then using a separate attribution provider to analyze results is being replaced by integrated systems that use performance data to automatically improve campaign delivery.

In our experience, the arrival of true performance metrics in CTV is a critical turning point for mid-sized companies. For years, many of our clients viewed television advertising as a high-cost, high-risk channel reserved for large corporations with massive brand-building budgets. The inability to measure direct ROI was a non-starter. This development fundamentally changes that calculation, opening a powerful new channel for customer acquisition that can be managed and justified financially. However, this new capability also introduces complexity. Businesses must be prepared to integrate this granular performance data into their overall financial models and marketing mix. It is not enough to simply run the ads; the real value comes from leveraging the data to make smarter strategic decisions about capital allocation and growth. Our outsourced CFO services focus on helping businesses navigate exactly these kinds of shifts, ensuring that new operational capabilities translate into measurable financial success. For guidance on integrating new marketing channel data into your financial strategy, contact C&S Finance Group LLC at csfinancegroup.com.

The evolution of performance-driven television is poised to continue its expansion. While CTV inventory is growing rapidly, the largest pool of television ads—more than 80%—still resides in traditional linear channels like broadcast and cable. Experts anticipate that the automated, data-driven buying and optimization techniques now maturing in CTV will soon be applied to this massive store of linear TV inventory. Given that linear TV ad spots are often priced significantly lower than their CTV counterparts, their integration into performance-based platforms could further accelerate the adoption of accountable, data-driven television advertising.